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 Posted October 15th, 2005 at 11:16AM
Hungary
Slovakia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Saturday, October 1st, I spent packing up my belongings for the trip. The day before I had bought another set of dress clothes and a duffel bag (a nice medium size between my backpack and huge suitcase) for the trip. We were leaving at 9pm, and besides a quick meeting in the morning to discuss expectations / etcetera, I had a lot of free time. I decided to pack light, and partially succeeded. A few changes of clothes, my camera, and some reading material.
The bus was a few minutes late, eschewing (stereo)typical German punctuality. A quick stop at the other student housing, and we were on the road.
For sixteen hours.
It was a decent-sized bus — nearly everyone got two seats to spread out upon — but there was a general funky smell that only got worse as the trip progressed. Also, someone was sick starting out, and all of us being in such close quarters, meant half of the group came down with it sometime during the trip (myself included).
Who was in this group? Roughly twenty students (all political science or international relations majors), an administator of the study abroad program, two professors, and two teacher’s assistants.
But so the ride was not all that bad, and we arrived in Budapest (Hungary) on schedule, in the early afternoon the next day. We checked into the hotel and had about two hours or so to relax. The hotel was centrally located and quite large. The room was small, but nicely furnished and clean. Every floor had a shoe waxing machine, which my roommate and I used at every available opportunity.
My roommate and I walked in a straight line from the hotel, and eventually found a decent little restaurant tucked in the back of a small alley. Supposedly goulash is the national soup / food / what the tourists are suppose to eat, so we had two bowls. It was good, although I had to fish large chunks of beef out of it. Forgot to specify which type of goulash on the menu. Doh.
After settling in and getting our bearings straight, the entire group headed out for a boat tour of Budapest on the Danube. For those who don’t know, Budapest was originally two cities — Buda and Pest. They sat on opposite sides of the Danube River. Eventually, the two cities grew and consolidated into one, split up the middle by the Danube.
So from the Danube, we could see many of the feature attractions of Budapest. Huge civil, religious, and governmental buildings dominated. The boat tour was alright — it was definitely the way to see many of the landmarks. However the weather at this point (Sunday evening, October 2nd) was getting chilly, compounded by the fact that we were on a boat in open water (windy). The pre-recorded tour in half a dozen different languages also wasn’t that memorable. But we got a free drink with our tickets, so who’s complaining?
After the boat ride ended, we were let loose. I split off from the group, and tried to find some food. Eventually found another lone student wandering around, and we settled on a shady-looking Chinese restaurant. This place was hilarious, because after a person picked out everything he wanted from the buffet sitting out, the hostess plopped the plate into a microwave to warm it up. Not that good. But it was cheap and edible. After eating, the two of us headed back to the hotel. I relaxed and watched a bit of TV for an hour, maybe two. Most of the programming was either in German or English, usually with Hungarian subtitles.
A couple people showed up, and we decided to wander about Budapest a bit. Had a drink at a sleepy bar, walked around some more. Afterwards headed back to the hotel and watched some TV, smoked our pipes, and drank a little. A quiet night.
Monday, October 3rd, (after an incredible continental breakfast) we had our first lectures. The first was alright but unmemorable — a general overview of the transformations that Hungary has gone through since 1989. The second talk was pretty sad. The speaker was not prepared at all, nor did he even seem to know what the general topic was (Hungarian civil society) until he showed up and was told. The only upshot of all of this was that they had free food, which I stocked up on.
By six o’clock, we were again free to do as we please. Which illustrates a major gripe I had with the entire trip. We were typically busy with seminars, mandatory tours, and the ilk, from morning to evening. This meant that we didn’t have time to do a lot of sightseeing. It basically limited us to seeing the cities through their respective bars. Case in point: there was in Budapest both a museum of torture and a famous statue park that half of us wanted to check out, but none of us were able to. Because they close at sunset, the same time we were just getting done. The statue park sounded especially great — after 1989, all of the Soviet-era communist statues scattered around Budapest were gathered up and relocated to this park. A missed opportunity. Maybe next time I’m in Budapest, eh? pff.
Anyways, our second night in Budapest we went to a cool little jazz bar, modelled after a 1920s speakeasy. There, we listened to jazz, and met a conservative American that we debated for a bit. Eventually, we ended up toasting “To America!” I shit you not. It was hilarious. At the end of the night, half of us ended up leaving huge tips, for two main reasons. First off, at the time of our trip, the exchange rate between the Hungarian currency (the Forint) and the euro was nearly 250 to 1. This made all of the prices laughably high, and made our perception of the cost of things.. change.
Secondly, the bartender in our section was this cute Hungarian redhead. Rawr.
Afterwards, a group of maybe six or seven of us went back and drank for a bit longer in our hotel room.
The next day, Tuesday, October 4th, we only stayed in Budapest for as long as it took us to attend one more lecture and a tour of the Hungarian National Parliament. It was a nice building, and the lecture wasn’t even that bad. At two in the afternoon, we left Budapest and headed towards Bratislava, by bus.
Posted October 11th, 2005 at 12:53PM
I got back in town at about five pm, local time. It’s nearly seven now. I’ve gone to the supermarket, torn my clothes out of my traveling bags, and caught up on my e-mail.
Still trying to unwind from the trip. Will probably take a few days.
And I’m definitely not ready to start blogging it. Looking back, I should have taken my laptop. A few of the hotels actually had free Wi-Fi. And the rest? Well, I could have paid. Writing up the entire trip now is a monumental task, it would of been much easier (and perhaps more interesting) to blog as I went along. But it’s too late now, now I must retroactively blog the fuck out of this website.
And I intend to. Perhaps the first part will come tonight. Perhaps.
To sum it up though? Fucking A.
Posted October 1st, 2005 at 8:41AM
Tonight at 9pm (3pm EST (note: I never bothered to change all of the times on this site, it’s still EST)), I leave for the longest official trip this semester. The Central and Eastern European field trip. An eleven day extravaganza.
First, we drive sixteen hours to Budapest, Hungary. We’ll spend three days total in Budapest, attending lectures and seminars, touring governmental institutions and the city. From there, we drive to Bratislava, in Slovakia. Here we attend more lectures, tour more institutions, and along the way will see Swan Lake at the Slovak National Theatre.
After two days in Slovakia, we drive to Prague (Czechoslovakia). Here we once again tour the city and attend seminars. Three days in Prague, then we fly to Tallin, Estonia. We’ll spend two days in Tallin, doing the same old gag, before finally flying back to Freiburg on Tuesday, October 11th.
It was my sincere hope to get my digital camera back from the shop (they sent it out to be cleaned) for this trip, however it’s still not back. I will be photographing this journey, but it’ll be with my trusty 35mm Canon. This is regretful, since if the pictures from this trip ever get online, it will be months from now when I have time and access to a scanner.
Even so, when I get back I will try to provide a description of the events as they unfolded. As well as some sort of map detailing my route, since it’s hard to visualize now.
Till then, comrades.
Posted September 28th, 2005 at 4:38PM
Saturday, 24th
I woke up whenever there was movement in my room. Didn’t want my stuff getting ripped off, since I had just stashed everything under my bed. Wallet, expensive cellphone, etc., in clear sight. So I woke up when the three got up in the middle of the night, a few hours later. Had to use the bathroom. O-K. Except one of them couldn’t be bothered to walk all that way. He wobbled over to the front of my bed, and proceeded to piss. I was only half-awake, so this didn’t fully register. It also didn’t register that my shoes and socks were right there.
The next morning it did. I remembered the kid pissing, I looked down there, and saw my shoes. I was somewhat perturbed (understatement?). Fuck this, I thought. I got up, gathered all my stuff, and assessed the situation. Somehow, my socks were soaked, but my shoes had weathered remarkably well (completely dry). Bed, sheets, and the rest of my stuff were also perfectly fine.
I have no idea what I would have done if my shoes or other belongings had been soaked. I mean, I had missed my window of opportunity of doing something earlier — when all three were piss-drunk. At half past six, I left my room with all of my stuff, went to the bathroom, and soaked the socks in a sink while I showered.
Stupid fuckers.
I requested a different room, but everyone else was only staying for that one night, so I would have entirely new roommates on Saturday night. I hit the streets at half past seven, with a few plans on my itinerary.
Although it was nice to get away from the morons who I was sleeping with, it was still a mistake to get out that early. Because, in Dublin, nothing opens in the morning. Even cafes serving “breakfast” were opening at noon.
So once again I walked around randomly. I found Ha’Penny Bridge, one of Dublin’s larger landmarks. Or so I’ve read. To me, it was just a sad, little pedestrian bridge crossing a mucky stream in an uninteresting part of town.
I almost didn’t take a picture of it.
When the Guiness Brewery finally opened, I walked to it. I’m not sure if calling it a ‘brewery’ is correct. The place is mammoth – Guiness ‘plant’ would probably be more accurate. Needless to say, the place reeked of that peculiar Guiness smell. And at those levels, it quickly began to smell like vomit. The brewery tour was closed years ago. However, there is still a giftshop, and a tour of some sort of museum. I got my Guinness loot and booked.
I walked some more. Eventually I wandered further north, to a tattoo shop that I had specc’d online a few days previously. The artist’s name was Pluto, and he was a massive, tattoo’d biker (there was a really nice bike shop right next door, that must have had some connection to Pluto’s parlor). When I entered, he was working on a little Laos tourist, there with his girlfriend. I was put off by the fact that he did the work right there, in front of the window. He did have to buzz me in, but we talked while he worked. Mixed first impression. However, I had really liked some of the work that he showed on the site, and he generally had an air of professionalism about him. He liked my design, and was able to fit me in later that day. I put down a 20 euro deposit and planned on meeting him in four hours.
I immediately had second thoughts, of course. But damnit, I had put down twenty euro! So to pass the time, I saw a movie. Land of the Dead. I believe it was opening in theaters that day. Great movie, by the way. Just for the few Americans who didn’t see it months ago when it was in theaters in the states.
Had dinner at a Turkish place, and then met up with Pluto. He was working on the template — a hand-drawn reproduction of my requested image, resized and drawn with some sort of ink that would leave a mark on my skin, for him to follow. It was very sharp. For the Laos kid earlier, Pluto had been blasting some heavy rock. I was only there for ten minutes, so it might of been the same for him. But for me, the music varied greatly. Hard rock, metal, and then the next second, international, drumming and chanting. It made a great tattoo’ing soundtrack.
He was a friendly chap. One of the big fears I had when I went to get my first tattoo, regardless of where I ended up going, was encountering a total dick who tried to intimidate me. This guy was alright, talked a bit, but seemed to be one of those artists who would rather not carry on a full conversation while they worked. This suited me fine, of course.
It took him an hour, and cost me seventy euro, all told. The actual procedure? Ridiculously painless. I expected a lot worse. The deeper outlining was slightly more uncomfortable than the light shading. But on the whole, not bad at all. I believe that I chose a good location (the underside of my forearm). Pluto said that this area can be fairly tender, but from reading around, it seems that the fleshier the area, the less painful it is.
After the tattoo, I checked back at the hostel. Everyone else had vacated my room, and no one else had yet checked in. Cajoled in part by Pluto (when we were finishing up, he asked what I was planning on doing. Saying “going back to the hostel” out loud, at seven pm, even sounded incredibly sad to myself), I decided to hit a pub. It was a nice, quiet place, not too far from the hostel. I switched to Heineken (the stench of the Guinness Brewery turning me off of Guiness for awhile), sat in a corner and watched soccer clips.
Went back to my room, read a bit. The new roommates filtered in, had no problems with any of them.
Sunday, the 25th
Woke up pretty early again. Checked out, ate breakfast, walked around a little bit. Decided to hit the airport earlier than need be, and just read a book. This was a good idea, since once again I had to deal with Dublin’s public transportation system. Eventually, I took a different bus than I was suppose to, because the bus I was told to take was full, and was going to fly right by without stopping. To get to the correct bus, a few other hostel’ers and I were allowed to hitch a ride on another bus for a few blocks, for free. Absolutely crazy bus system.
I got to the airport, finished the book I had been reading (Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater), and looked through the entire airport bookstore before finally settling on John Grisham’s The Broker. Throughout Sunday, I read the bulk of it’s 465 pages. Easy reading, but generally engrossing.
The trip back to Freiburg was uneventful, but for the final leg, the train ride from Frankfurt to Freiburg. It was easy to tell who was coming back from Oktoberfest. If they weren’t still intoxicated, or passed out, then they had t-shirts. Can’t believe I didn’t go. Plans just fell through. C’est la vie.
Posted September 28th, 2005 at 4:37PM
Dublin
Friday, 23rd
Friday morning I got on the train headed towards Frankfurt, from which I was to fly to Dublin via Aer Lingus. I had ordered all of my tickets ahead of time, online, and the gates I needed to get to were all clearly labeled. The train and flight to Dublin was painless.
I caught a city bus to the center of Dublin, or at least until I started getting worried. See, Dublin has a terrible city bus system. They are massive double-decker buses, and the routes seem to be endless. I rode for a good forty minutes before I got worried that I had missed my stop (turns out, I wasn’t even near the central part of town). There is no display inside the bus to tell which stop you are at. The stops outside aren’t clearly labeled. And, perhaps most surprising / off-putting, is the fact that the bus driver sometimes just blows by the stops. Even when there are people waiting for the bus. That ride on Friday, I watched numerous groups of people stare at the bus, slackjawed, and then try to run alongside it, motioning for the driver to stop. Was the bus full? Was the driver in a bad mood? No idea.
Anyways, I got off pretty randomly (a lot of people seemed to get off at the same stop, figured it was a good spot), and then wandered around Dublin. I was still quite a bit north of the proper city center, and it wasn’t a particularly nice or scenic neighborhood.
Perhaps a few words about Dublin are in order. Before my trip, as I Google’d for suggestions about what to do, I had read about a few problems with Dublin. Specifically, that it was a dirty city. I shrugged this off when I first read it. People complain about NYC all the time, but I have no problems there. Cities have odd, sometimes disturbing smells. It’s part of the charm, perhaps.
But once I got there, the filth level was on a whole new level. Every three steps, I had to avoid a pile of dog shit. Every five steps, a pile of vomit.
I’m not even exaggerating that much. Dublin does not seem to spend any money on basic sanitation. On Saturday, when I got up early and was walking around, I saw many shop owners washing the sidewalks (and walls) directly in front of their shops. This was the only effort I saw the entire time I was there.
Anyways, the dogshit and vomit initially put me off. The rest of the city didn’t have much going for it either. The buildings were pretty ugly and utilitarian. Traffic driving on the other side of the streets made it difficult and confusing to cross at intersections. You wouldn’t think it’s a huge deal, but it is.
I walked around lost for a few hours. I eventually found the hostel that I had booked. It was nice, the staff were friendly, generally a clean place. None of the other people had arrived at my room. I read about a decent pub / restaurant in the neighborhood, went and had dinner. Drank a Guinness (mandatory for anyone who ever visits Dublin). Went back to my room, and read for an hour or so, went to bed at maybe 10pm. I was tired and disappointed in the city, give me a break!
Then the fun started. A group of three Irish, college-age kids arrived at the room, dropped their stuff off, and went back out. They came back maybe an hour or two later, wasted. I didn’t care, I knew I had went to bed way too early, didn’t blame them. Two other individuals eventually slept in the room also (it was an eight bed room).
Posted September 16th, 2005 at 5:47PM
Thursday morning, bright and early at 6am, we got onto the bus and headed toward Switzerland. Our destination? Geneva, to tour the UN and attend several lectures. The ride there was approximately three hours, and wouldn’t have been that bad, but for the fact that we wore formal attire, which is generally hot, uncomfortable, and has the side effect of making one look like a total jackass.
Once we got to Geneva, we were processed, given UN badges, and taken on a tour. The tourguide was entertaining, the tour itself a bit bland but worthwhile anyway. Afterwards, we ate at the UN cafeteria, where it began.
The prices were fucking outrageous. And they use bullshit monopoly money (Swiss Francs). The food was alright, I got lucky with the eggplant parmesan. After we were fucked over at the cafeteria, we attended two lectures. Both were rather uninspiring and unmemorable. A whole lot of idyllic, “this is how the UN works, and look at all we accomplish” bullshit. I could dig out the itinerary if you’re really interested.
Afterwards, we checked into our hotels (another monumental letdown, and I was in the better of the two!), and then ate fondue. Yes, apparently in Switzerland, dipping bread on a stick into a huge vat of cheese is considered a meal (a very expensive meal, at approximately 25 Swiss Francs per person). It was an odd experience, that I didn’t really hate or enjoy. They added wine to the cheese, which really gave it a peculiar taste. Disappointment number…. I dunno, who’s counting?
Afterwards, the Ugly Americans were let loose into the city. And we lived up to the hype. Starting out in a huge group, a few of us splintered off. People came and went throughout the night. At first, we visited a convenience store, where the guy told us that the sale of alcohol after nine was prohibited (in liquor and convenience stores, and the ilk). With five minutes to spare, we were faced with an important decision.
I went with the cheapest vodka that Swiss Francs can buy. Some crap from Poland, which still came to an embarrassing 22 Francs. Then we went to a bar, for a round. We sat outside, and although I knew it wasn’t kosher, I was trying to keep some semblance of a budget. So I did not go in and order a pint, but rather sipped from my bottle from time to time.
After probably forty-five minutes, and five or six other people buying a round, the bartender came outside and grabbed the bottle from my hand, saying something in French, and walking back inside. Asshole number one.
He was also over-charging everyone. We don’t speak French, but we can fucking count. I was resolute that if I didn’t see my vodka again, he wouldn’t be seeing any of the glass beer steins (which were quite nice, actually). Unfortunately, I am still stein-less. We walked back to a hotel room, and did what people do. Drink, talk, and watch a Tupac marathon. Oh, and there was also this wonderful roundtable discussion on the tv involving Bono, Bill Clinton, Paul Wolfowitz, and the Queen of Jordan, among others. Eclectic cast, to be sure. In the end, I managed to trash my hotel room a bit. Unintentional, of course. Who’s smart idea was it to put the glasses on the edge of the sink in the bathroom?
I woke up, felt horrible, and attended another two lectures at the UN. Which I remember even less of than the first two the previous day. But by the time they were over, I was feeling chipper, and with four hours to spare before traveling back to Freiburg, I decided to walk around in a small pack of Americans, eating falafel and watching swans (we found a dead one). Also went to the top of a church (The guy charging admission? Total dick). The view was outstanding.
Ultimately, Geneva seemed to be full of overpriced, crappy food. Expensive brand-name watches, suits, and of course, knives. Sad, balding men with small penises driving Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys. It’s a town full of naive, idealistic UN bureaucrats, and the parasites who feed off of them.
Oh, and everyone spoke French. I actually felt glad to be back in Freiburg where people speak German. At the very least, I know what language I’m not understanding, as people try to talk to me.
The short and sweet? Geneva — an expensive town full of assholes. Speaking French.
I say nay.
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